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The smirk was still on his lips when he ended the call.

“You’re really quite mad, aren’t you?” she said with disdain.

“People who poke wasps nest should expect to get stung.” His eyes gleamed with menace. “And people who have nothing left to lose have nothing left to fear. You should have remembered that before you decided to show us your so-called mercy.”

* * *

“Where are we?”

It was the first question Mattia’s hostage had asked since he’d pulled her hood off. The first words spoken in the room in almost thirty minutes. Mattia had spent that time on his phone, ignoring her. Trying to ignore her.

Elvira Ranieri had a presence that demanded attention, a face and body eyes wanted to gaze at.

Having zero interest in women, beautiful or not, he found it disturbing that his eyes wanted to gaze at her. He’d had the same problem at his sister’s wedding to Elvira’s brother barely two months ago. Elvira had rocked up in black leather trousers and a tight little top, so truculently beautiful that he’d found himself having to concentrate hard throughout the service not to stare at her.

It was while the vows were being exchanged that he’d forgotten himself and turned his face to her at the same moment she’d turned her face to him.

They’d met several times before that in the build-up to the wedding, but that moment was the first time their eyes had locked and they’d actually looked at each other. It had been the most unsettling feeling.

Later, at the ‘celebration’ of the marriage his mother had hosted in the Espositos’ family home, he’d felt Elvira’s silver eyes on him. He’d returned the look with his coldest stare, which she’d rewarded with unfettered disdain. All the times their paths had crossed in the weeks afterwards, they’d met each other’s eyes with the same coldness and disdain. All their short conversations had been steeped in mutual icy contempt.

For all Mattia’s outward coldness, though, he found her disturbing in a way he’d never felt before. Her beauty. Her attitude. Everything about her.

More disturbing had been the instinct that she was the one watching him while he’d been in his bolt hole. He’d known it was her long before he’d received confirmation of it.

“I said, where are we?” she repeated.

“An apartment in Pozzuoli,” he answered shortly. A few miles to the west of Naples, Pozzuoli was just close enough for Elio Ranieri to discount it as a place Mattia would be keeping her.

“How exciting. We can take a trip to the amphitheatre.”

“I’ll see if I can fit it in our schedule.”

“Speaking of trips, I’m losing the feeling in my arms, and I need to use the bathroom.”

He lifted his stare from his phone. “I’ll get you a bucket.”

Her pretty nose wrinkled. “A bucket? I know I’m your hostage, but am I not allowed to keep some dignity?”

“Is my mother being kept with dignity?”

“She’s living a life of poverty that even a nun would consider frugal, but we are not animals and would not expect her to live as one.” She gave a sudden smile. “Why don’t you call Bruno and ask him to take a picture of her using the toilet?”

The rage that had been simmering in his bloodstream for ten … no, eleven now … long days rose into his throat. Swallowing it back by the skin of his teeth, he said, “I’ll fetch the bucket.”

“And you’ll undo my jeans and pull them and my panties down for me? Will you hold my naked hips steady so I don’t miss the bucket and pee all over the floor?”

Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes.

“Also, would you mind taking my boots off for me? My feet are killing me in these heels. I promise not to relax my bladder while you’re doing it.”

His jaw as clenched as his teeth, Mattia met Elvira’s silver stare. They were bewitching eyes that should look out of place with her long, thick, dark chestnut hair and dewy olive skin and yet suited her perfectly. Everything about Elvira Ranieri, from the curve of her hips in those skin-tight black jeans to the jut of her pert breasts beneath the strappy, glittering black top and short black leather jacket, to her snub nose, was beautiful.

That she crackled with attitude only added to her allure, and it disgusted him that he would even think of her in this way. Disgusted him that he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to have her pinned beneath him naked.

Mattia hadn’t had sex since his father died, and it infuriated him that he could have these kinds of thoughts about anyone, let alone the Ranieri bitch.

Fixing her with a look that burned with all his loathing, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his gun.